ABSTRACT
Before, and at the time of the Plaintiffs sustaining the injury complained of, the Defendant rented and occupied a walled garden in the parish of St. Phillip and Jacob, in the county of Gloucester, in which the Defendant grew valuable flower-roots, and particularly tulips, of the choicest and most expensive description. The garden was at the distance of near a mile from the Defendant's dwelling-house, and above one hundred yards from the road. In it there was a summer-house, consisting of a single room, in which the Defendant and his wife had some considerable time before slept, and intended in a few days after the accident again to have slept, for the greater protection of their property. The garden was surrounded by a wall, by which it was separated on the south from a footway up to some houses, on the east and west from other gardens, and on the north from a field which had no path through it, and was itself fenced against the highway, at a considerable distance from the garden, by a wall. On the north side of the garden the wall adjoining the field was seven or eight feet high. The other walls were somewhat lower. The garden was entered by a door in the wall. The Defendant had been, shortly before the accident, robbed of flowers and roots from his garden to the value of £20 and upwards: in consequence of which, for the protection of his property, with the assistance of another man, he placed in the garden a spring gun, the wires connected with which were made to pass from the doorway of the summer-house to some tulip beds, at the height of about fifteen inches from the ground, and across three or four of the garden paths, which wires were visible from all parts of the garden or the garden wall; but it was admitted by the Defendant, that the Plaintiff had not seen them, and that he had no notice of the spring gun and the wires being there; and that the Plaintiff had gone into the garden for an innocent purpose, to get back a peafowl that had strayed.
